There are some savages—in Polynesia, I think—who decorate themselves by thrusting a wooden stick through their lips. To our European taste they look hideous, honestly, I cannot see that they who make holes in their lips in order to ornament themselves are any worse at all than they who make holes in their ears for the same purpose. The one is just as thorough barbarism as the other.
When Amy Clere thus appealed to her to express an opinion, Elizabeth Foulkes looked up from her sewing and gave it.
“No, Mistress Amy; I do scarce think it.”
“Why, wouldst thou better love these yellow ones?”
“To speak truth, Mistress Amy, I think you look best without either.”
“Dear heart, to hear the maid! Wouldst not thou fain have a pair, Bess?”
“Nay, Mistress Amy, that would I not.”
“Wherefore?”
“Because, as methinks, such tawdry gewgaws be unworthy a Christian profession. If you desire my thought thereon, Mistress Amy, you have it now.”
“Forsooth, and thou mightest have kept it, for all I want of it. ‘Tawdry gewgaws,’ indeed! I tell thee, Bess; these be three shillings the pair.”